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Just to the northwest, a few miles from Black Rock City, is the Hualapai Flat, another playa-type flat formation/depression that occasionally gets its share of water after the infrequent rain storms pass through the area.

On the northwest side of the flat is a wetland fed by underground springs, home of the Fly Geyser on a parcel of land known as Fly Ranch, recently purchased by the Burning Man organization for future use as an adjunct to the activities at Black Rock City.

As we all know, EPOCH is all about bush flying - something we have done little of on this Vacation. It's high time that was changed, so the first part of our Day 4 Vacation will see to correcting this deficiency.

But... it is a vacation after all, and it should have us all doing things we don't normally do in the bush flying world of Alaska and west-coastal Canada, which brings us to the second part of our Day 4 adventure. Let it suffice to say, for the purposes of this introduction, that the rather famous phrase from the old movie Top Gun, as spoken by 'Maverick' on his way to the flight line, best describes Part 2 -

"I feel the need; the need for Speed!"

Real Weather Metar for this Vacation Day only please! Alright... let's have some fun!

Part 1:

As you may have discovered when reading the links above, Burning Man is planning on doing something creative and sustaining with their purchase of the Fly. You may have also seen how many millions of dollars were spent to purchase that ranch, and that the money all came from private donors, not from public BRC funds. Well, these donors would like to travel from Black Rock City to the wetlands to see what they have contributed to, take a couple of pictures and fly back to The Burn. This is where you come in!

The Flight:

1. Some of the planners have had a couple of amphibious aircraft flown in to 88NV specifically for the purpose of flying to the wetlands and geyser, landing and returning. Not so much for ride gifting, but to move these executives with deep pockets and meet their request.

Pick your favourite amphib, keeping in mind the following:

a. You will need to fly 5 people (180# each) to the wetland and back.

b. You need to balance the weight you will take with the landing and takeoff area at the wetland (only use the identified wetland below, even though X-Pv10 shows the entire flat as having water).

c. Don't forget to make a manual adjustment to your "Wave Height" if the real weather metar has you riding tsunamis. Check before you set up for your landing.

d. which of course means you will/may have to take more than one trip.

e. Be mindful of how you will exit and enter Burning Man airspace and stay within the rules!

Here are a couple of snaps from Local Map in X-Plane V9.7 and then 10.45 (default mesh) to orient you to the wetland and distances involved from an X-Plane perspective:

Enjoy and maybe share how many flights you required in what plane and how you found the takeoff and landing cycles at the wetland, given the distance available, temperature and altitude.

Part 2: "Burning Machine"

Let us satisfy our need for speed in a very controlled and quick way shall we? How about rocking the playa with some turbofans and kerosene?

This is a timed event, pilots, so one of the first things you need to do is to check your onboard choronometer or a timer on your hardware and be sure you can trigger start and stop quickly when needed, without taking even a split second to go looking for it, since high speed plus low altitude can equate to long, unsightly scars on the playa floor and a whole lot of moop* to worry about.

So what you're going to do is to pick one of your fast and maneuverable aircraft and blast your way from south to north or vice versa, following the map shown below, while timing your run. Pretty simple rules as you'll see, but keep a sharp eye and steady hand, as you have to keep within a fixed vertical altitude corridor and only have about 18 nautical miles to cover - which is a mere 100 seconds or so at Mach 1 . You will be crossing over BRC at low altitude, but everyone is ready for you, so you are allowed to exceed the speed of sound if you like - broken things shall be re-invented into new "PSBA" (Post Sonic Boom Art) at the conclusion of the event

The Flight:

1. Yup, they brought lots of aircraft into BRC for this, so choose whatever you would like.

2. You must depart 88NV Black Rock City Airport, fly to your chosen start (at Gerlach in the south or the edge of the playa just north of the start of the mountains to the right and left - see map below) and then fly the timed race and land again at BRC.

3. 2,000 feet AGL is required to get you to the start of your timed run please.

4. You MUST fly between 1,000' and 2,000' AGL on your timed race run. No exceptions!

5. You must pass directly over Black Rock City during your timed run. No exceptions!

6. You will need fuel for the hop plus enough (minimum 30 minutes) for a divert to a suitable airfield (KNFL, Fallon NAS to the south comes to mind) if conditions don't favour a landing at 88NV.

7. The latitude and longitude have been provided on the map so you know when to hit the timer.

It would be great if you shared your aircraft type, route direction chosen for the timed race and your time with us - maybe even a screenie if you are so inclined.

Have a great time pilots and remember, your insurance policy only covers 10 million bucks. Be careful out there

Oh yeah... here's a gratuitous music video link for y'all , complete with a quick glance of the Black Rock Playa at 2:04

Nice going Rocky. I crashed 2 more F14s (other than the one on the NF) before I nailed my speed run and managed to land again. Geesh - these beasts sure don't STOL eh?

The Viggen looks like a lot of fun. Heh, I took the SMS Beaver for the 5 person hop to the lake in V10 and then took the STMA Beaver to the lake in V9. The lake is smaller in V9 but nothing the good ol' Beav can't handle. Love your choice - ahhh, nothing like round engines that don't reek of kerosene!